The Ponant is Freed

On Friday, the ordeal of the French yacht, Ponant, which had been hijacked by Somali pirates, was resolved. In last week's post, I speculated that the end would come either with paying ransom or military action. As it turned out, both happened. The details have not been confirmed but as far as I can tell from various news reports, the owners of the yacht, CMA-CGM, paid a ransom of $2 million dollars for the release of the 30 man crew who were brought safely ashore. The pirates then attempted to flee the area in three pickup trucks but were tracked by French attack helicopters. One car was disabled by a sniper shot and the 6 pirates inside were captured by French commandos. The video can be seen here. In addition to capturing 6 of the 12 pirates, the French armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin said that some of the ransom money was recovered as well. The pirates have been taken into French custody and the French government has asked the Somalis for permission to extradite them back to France.

A couple questions to think about. One, why couldn't the French commandos capture all of the pirates. With 2 boats, 4 or 5 helicopters and 50 commandos, why was only one car disabled? And why, as it seems, did they have to be captured and not killed outright? Gen. Georgelin said in a press conference that "No shots were fired directly at the pirates"? I understated the need to avoid collateral damage, but if the sniper could hit the engine of a moving car, the pirates could have been hit too.

Second, what effect will this have as a deterrence measure? If half of the pirates got away with some of the money, the incentive may still exist to continue their hijacking ways, especially if the pirates are smarter about the nationality of the vessels they attack. That is to say, stay away from vessels belonging to countries with commando teams that can deploy to the region.

Third, was the operation coordinated between the French charter company and the French government, or did the company expect to pay the money for the crew and the ship, and the military acted independently. Obviously, it seems that avoiding casualties among the crew was the overriding factor, so I am not clear on exactly what the French commando mission was about. Were they trying to capture the pirates to bring them to justice, perhaps recover some of the ransom, or make a show of force to prevent a future incident?